Happy New Year from Beijing!

Happy 2011 Everyone!

I've been back in Beijing for about two days now! I had a fabulous time at home with my family and friends and it was really hard to get back on the train to Seattle. I am so lucky to have such amazing and supportive people in my life!

I know I have some more work to do here, though.

The flight to Beijing was a bit traumatic. I knew it was going to be a rough ride when the pilot announced that it was going to be a bit rocky. There was lots of turbulence, and I am a nervous flyer to start with, so it wasn't fun. Plus, I was pretty sad.

I went into work yesterday, and I was greeted by lots of friends happy to see me, so that made me feel so much better! I passed out Christmas cards with Seattle airport key chains and brought out the fortune cookies my Mom had gotten for my friends at work. In China, they don't give out fortune cookies at the end of the meals! The Chinese local teachers were pretty fascinated by them and enjoyed them. My class for the evening had been canceled, so I got a lot of planning done for the weekend classes.

Last night, I rang in the New Year at my friends' Laura and Claire's apartment. Laura made us a big, delicious dinner and we had wine and toasted in the New Year with the Big Ben bells and sang to a Chinese version of "Old Lang Syne" right over left. I stayed and chatted until I was practically falling asleep. I celebrated that night with people from China, England and Australia. I thought that was pretty special! I came home and practically fell into bed!

My first day of the New Year has been pretty slow. I slept in and called home. Oregon needs to catch up to the New Year! Now, I need to go take care of the hurricane that is my little studio, and grade some papers while watching Cool Runnings!

A Very Roddy Christmas!

Today was a fun, but long day at work! I was just too excited. Luckily, I didn't have to teach the last session of classes for the day and got to play dress up instead to get ready for the EF Christmas party. One of the TAs played hairdresser for me!

Almost directly after the last classes of the day ended, we were ushered onto a nice bus to take us to the hotel where we had the Christmas party. It was about a forty minute bus ride, but it was merry.

We got to the hotel and it was all dressed up as beautiful, classy Winter Wonderland! It was so pretty. They had huge gingerbread houses that even had their own lights! The families were escorted into a banquet hall to start the festivities right away, but the teachers and customer relations staffs from Beijing 1, 3, and 5 led into a beautiful dining hall where we were able to have a nice Christmas buffet Chinese style. Sadly, the food wasn't that tasty, but the company was lovely.

After dinner, Stephanie, Joyce, Nick and I meandered around the hotel talking cheesy pictures. Then, we headed into the banquet hall with all the EF families.

The festivities had been rolling for maybe 30 minutes when we got in, and it was mass chaos like I had expected, but truly feel- good mass chaos. I got to chat with my students and their families as the talented show went on. It was really, really warm in the room though. The children were mostly all dressed to the nines in pretty Christmas dresses and little suits. It was too cute. Students sang songs, played musical instruments, did yo-yo tricks, and we even had a kung fu show that stole the show. The teachers from my school got to go up and sing a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells." Most of us had microphones and we went around and let the kids sing into them for a moment like rock stars. The evening ended with lots of slender santas giving away presents to all the children. Each child received a stuffed rabbit. Next year is the year of the Rabbit according to Chinese astrology.

I had an awesome moment standing in the back of the banquet hall. I just felt really lucky to be there and truly a part of the community. I have no clue where I will be this time next year, but right now I know this where I needed to be this year.

However, I am ready to go home for a visit! I have a little bit more packing to do, hopefully be able to fall asleep for a bit, and get on an early subway train to the airport!

Thank you for reading my blog this year, dear readers! I'll see you back in the blogosphere in the New Year!

Old Grandpa Christmas's Sledge

I've been a busy, busy ELL teacher. I am all caught up with my grading and have all my lesson plans are planned for my holiday! I'm ready to go home for a holiday!

I had a fun day teaching today. I did a few Christmas activities with some of my elementary classes today. I had a class tell me what they thought about Christmas and it was adorable. One boy told me a story about old grandpa Christmas's sledge. Too cute. It's been an experience living in a place where the biggest Western holiday is not a big deal, or celebrated in such different ways.

Tomorrow's a big day in the EF world. The school is having it's first official Christmas party. They are busing all the students and their parents to a theater, along with the academic and customer relations staffs, to a theater. There, we will be watching the students' talent show. Formal dress is required. I can't wait!

Captain's Log: 1 Full Beijing Day to go!

A Sign From Oregon

It was much warmer today in Beijing! I left my apartment all bundled up to be pleasantly surprised to not be completely frozen through once I first stepped outside. I could feel people being happier as I walked to the grocery store.

I met the new local teacher that is replacing my friend Stephanie who has decided to move on to a different school. Her name is Sue and I think she will fit in quite nicely. Everyone was being pretty silly today and in good moods in the teachers' office and we didn't frighten her away! Good sign.

I had two pretty decent small star classes tonight. In my second class, the one that calls me Coco, one of the little boys was wearing a Nike sweatshirt that had the University of Oregon crest on it and the word "Oregon' spread across it. This makes my third sighting of clothing from Oregon. The first was a Steve Prefontaine tee-shirt, the second was a Duck's hat that was given out at EF's fall conference, and the third was tonight's little sweatshirt!

Tonight on the treadmill at the gym I watched from the window as a restaurant across the street was having a Christmas party or something. Everyone was dressed up like Santa!

3 Full Beijing Days to Go!

Coldest December 15th for Beijing Ever!

Baby, it's cold outside is an understatement! It is obnoxiously cold up in here! I think I'm being punished for every hot weather woe that has ever crossed my lips!

I started my day trying to get to my Chinese class! I had to wait for four trains to go by before I was pushed onto the train by some of my fellow passengers. It wasn't a pretty ride! I got to my final destination and exited out from the wrong exit! I found myself in a mall that had an Armani store! Eventually, I got myself out of the mall, and could see the EF building I needed to get to. After numerous attempts to get to the other side of the road (it took me three times to cross and a trip in an underground parking lot) I made it to the other side! I got to class only five minutes late . I would have been on time if I hadn't gotten confused with the super secret elevators that make me think that I should be in a Bond movie. I think the class is going to be at a perfect speed for me. The instructor speaks in both Mandarin and English when needed. A lot of today's vocabulary was familiar to me which was very exciting and surprising. I can now ask someone how they are! I'll see how it goes after missing two weeks during my holiday. I'll have to be doing some studying on my own. Tones are still real hard!

Then, the student became the teacher as I went to Starfish for my adult classes that I teach. I brought goodies in for my students since I won't be seeing them again until the New Year. My beginner students are doing so well. Today, they got excited because they went through my Chinese class text book and found words that they wanted me to translate for them into English. The women gave me a beautiful starfish necklace that they made. I'll treasure it!

Then, after some long waits for buses, I met Marie and Cindy in the Lama Temple Hutong to meet up with some of Cindy's high school friends... a few who had witnessed my wedding fiasco! We went out to eat at a hot pot restaurant and it was delicious! I hadn't had much to eat that day since it was a go-go-go kind of day, and it was all nice and warm. We took a cold walk to a nearby coffee shop. The coffee shop looked like it should be in South East Portland. There were local artists' works on the wall and jazz playing in the background. There was even a friendly residential dog!

Holiday Countdown: 4 Full Beijing Days to Go!

Christmas Shopping Adventures

Here's a few funny pictures from our Christmas shopping adventures.

Today, I started my day by meeting Claire at the subway to eventually meet up with Stephanie who was lovely enough to help us with some Christmas shopping. We first went to a big department store so Claire could look at some jewelry and buy some traditional cooking supplies for her dad.

Later on, the three of us met up with James and went shopping at this crazy, crazy market. The place was just packed. We dashed (as merrily as we could) through the store to help Claire get a few last minute gifts before she had to get to work. The rest of us spent the rest of the afternoon at the crazy shopping center. Any material you could imagine being made was at that center. It was fantastic and crazy and loud! Also, everyone there is really pushy... literally pushy! I had old ladies swatting at me to get out of their ways! I went to one booth to buy Christmas cards for my friends at work and people were just pushing and elbowing me out of the way! They were serious about getting those cards! It was funny, but also alarming and overwhelming being the usually polite, friendly Oregonian girl that I am. I really had to see it as an adventure!

We eventually got out the center alive with Christmas presents in hand. Today was the coldest that it has ever been since I arrived in Beijing. It was 12 degrees F when I woke up this morning! It's 16 degrees F right now close to midnight! I'm going to feel like I am in a heat wave when I come home for my holiday! Stephanie kept on reminding us that this is nothing yet! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!

Weekend

I had a fun teaching weekend this weekend. I felt it was going to be a bit of a quirky one when I went in to set up my first class and Aiye was cleaning puke that had been drying from one of the previous evening's classes! Then, one of my students kept screaming "Merry Christmas!" into everyone's ear and gleefully giggling after each episode. EF had put up a big "Merry Christmas" cut out that people can stick their head into and take a picture with an EF nutcracker. It's caused quite a commotion!

Later on that day, in an elementary class, I turned my back to help some students and I turned around a few moments later to one of my students asleep on the floor! In China, many of the middle school students take an important test that says where they are able to attend high school. Getting into a prestigious high school is akin to getting into a good university in the U.S. It's actually probably much more important. The high school that the student gets into will determine his or her university placement. There is just so much pressure on many of these students.

Today, my favorite TB class was studying environmentalism which was really fun and easy for me to plan. I had so many ideas! I then had a parent teacher meeting class day for one of my lower level elementary classes. I really enjoy meeting the parents and learning more about their children. It really helps having a bit of background knowledge when we usually teach most classes every other week. Most of the parents request that the students need memorization homework assignments. It's one of my hardest questions to answer because EF does not include memorization into the program to be seen as more of a Western teaching style school. Chinese students learn and study by using memorization techniques. Other than that, I had a few lovely meetings with parents.

Cindy and I went to the Lama Temple Hutong for dinner. It was nice to get out of my neighborhood for a bit. I love how parts of that Hutong are so modern and other parts are old and historical. It's becoming one of my favorite spots in Beijing.

Candy Thanksgiving Dinner

I woke up to some crazy wind today! I was thinking of going into work extra early, but listening to the wind left me to some productive procrastinating. There were huge clouds of brown dust just whipping past. I watched from my window as a little preschool aged one furiously trying to not take off in flight! I bought my roundtrip Amtrack ticket from Seattle to Portland this morning. I only have ten more days until my holiday! I am so excited.

Eventually, I needed to get to work to get some lesson plans done. I felt like I was battling the wind to just cross the street. I went to the bank and paid my water bill, and it only took 2o minutes, which is a banking miracle.

Work was good today. I got a lot of lesson plans done and we had an interesting meeting. We learned that for our school's Christmas party for the kids on the 19th we are expected to dress formally and are being bused from the school to a big theater. It's going to be interesting....

I received a package from my Dad and Joanna today. They sent me a candy Thanksgiving dinner. It was an awesome surprise! I shared some of it with my friends at work. The candy fruits were the biggest hit, Joanna!

I started a new course level with a group of elementary students that I have been teaching since I arrived in May. I had them help me write a class contract, almost directly stealing from the cabin constitutions that Outdoor School does. I had the students write out our finished product on their own special sheets of paper and we all signed each other's contracts. I shook hands with all the students to make it really official. It went so well, and I was really proud of how mature they took the responsibility.

Tonight, I went out for a very late dinner with Miles, Laura and Claire at the Korean barbeque place. We decided on a "tacky" theme for our New Year's Eve party. I think it will be fun.

Horse Buggies and BMWs

My normal volunteer gig yesterday had to cancel because the women were off to a special presentation of their jewelry. I was left to my own devices. I didn't do too much, and it actually felt really restorative. I talked with Laura and my Mom, went grocery shopping, cleaned up a bit and hit the gym. I glanced out the window at the perfect moment while on the treadmill to see a horse buggy meandering in front of a BMW. Gotta just love Beijing sometimes!

Today, I went to work feeling more productive then I have in awhile. I had spent the two prior weekends either studying for a big work test and at the workshop last weekend. It was nice to have a work free weekend! I'm starting to think about getting all my lessons planned for my "substitutes" while I am home for Christmas!

Tian'anmen Square

Today marked my seventh month in Beijing! Boom!

I spent my morning and early afternoon chilling at my apartment mostly catching up on TV shows! It was fantastic.

Then, I decided to go visit Tian'anmen Square! It took a lot longer than I had anticipated by subway and I missed the flag lowering ceremony by minutes! I still had a bit of a wander. Most of the buildings that I wanted to visit, including the museum and the Forbidden Palace had already closed. I could have paid my respects to Mao, whose body is displayed in one of the buildings, but I decided to pass on that experience. I made friends at an art exhibition near the square featuring the artwork of graduate students. One was nice enough to write my name in Chinese characters! Apparently, the "lleen" part of my name means "long, happy life." I did go into the park next door called the Bei Hai Park. It looked beautiful, but it was dusk, so I didn't get to see as much of it as I wanted. I did get a few pictures of Bartholomew, though!

Then, I went to Sanlitun to do a bit of Christmas shopping. I also ate dinner at one of my favorite Western style restaurants where I got a big salad with avocados that I savored and a glass of chardonnay. It was delicious!

"It's a Book!"

My first class tonight with the Violent One was interesting. The school has decided to keep the "big kid" chairs in all the classrooms instead of moving them into the hallways or in unused classrooms during small star classes. The goal is to keep parents out of the corridors of the school and it prevents the aiyes and TA's from moving the chairs around during every break. However, it leaves the rooms much more cramped for all the running around we do with our small stars.... Plus, they are a bit distracting and dangerous for the little ones. So, that has thrown everything off a bit.

Plus, we have gotten about six new students into the class and they all have their own precious, unique personalities although sometimes they are all a bit overwhelming at times. They are rather a special small stars class. One of the new boys is super mature and thinks all the other kids are rather special. Tom is like an old man in a five-year-olds body. Then... there is Victor.

The kid's English name is Victor, but like many Chinese ELL students, the "v" sound is really, really tough, so he says his name is "Richard" but got really mad at me last week when I wrote "Richard" on the board! Today, we were learning to sight read a few classroom words. Little Victor answered everything with the response, "It's a book!" It got pretty hysterical over time. My TA was cracking up.

The rest of my day was nice, too. I finished grading and sorting out a huge stack of student work. I wrote a parent update for one of my higher level classes, and I finally cleaned out my work cupboard. I recycled a lot of papers that I have been meaning to file, but it's just not happening. It was time to start a new. I was very excited to find my Doctor McCoy button I thought I had lost a few months ago off of my coat, but it was just chilling in my cupboard. I went out for fruit tea and some snacks with Cindy and the local teacher Claire after work which was a nice way to end the work week.

I'm way excited for this weekend. I didn't get a full weekend off last weekend due to a conference, so this one will be much more appreciated!

Duck Fever in Beijing

Have you ever described the University of Oregon/ Oregon State University "civil war" to an Englishman before? It sounds really ridiculous. I tried to explain the one sporting game that would actually make me look up the score between classes today. I guess they really don't do that kind of stuff in England... of course, they really don't do American football there, either. It made me wonder if there are any other Ducks out there in Beijing today?

No big news from my weekend here. A few of the teachers taught the Thanksgiving life club lesson that I planned and they told me they enjoyed it! There are now a few lovely trees of gratitude up around the school! I was really proud of my oldest class today. I showed them a Regis and Kelly interview of Emma Watson (the young woman who plays Hermoine in the Harry Potter movies.... the girls liked that she is pursuing her degree at Brown) and had them create their own scripts of entertainment interviews. I told them they could pretend to interview anyone in the world. One group interviewed a cartoon voice actor, two did an interview on Chinese pop singers and one group pretended to interview President Obama. They all were pretty fabulous.

Most of us teachers went out to dinner to officially celebrate Cindy's birthday! A few of the other girls and I have celebrated Cindy's birthday four times now! We went to the Korean restaurant. We got into trouble because we were laughing so loud at one point, and a waitress had to ask us to keep it down.... Whoops. It was a lot of fun, though!

It's been really cold here! I live in the "windy" part of the city, and that makes it feel colder. I'm hoping we'll get some snow soon to make up for the temperatures! The pathetic fact is that I know this is just the beginning of the coldness!

Birthday Fairy

I am the birthday fairy at work and today we were going to celebrate James and Cindy's birthdays. I went to the grocery store to have a wander to see what would be an interesting treat for all of us at work and I found doughnuts! It was very exciting. I was able to get a dozen in a variety of flavors. I was also searching for something to eat for lunch and they had a big tray of microwaveable lunches. I picked up one that looked like Chinese food that I would eat at home! It was pretty good. It was a little strange eating Chinese food that reminded me of home!

We had a very, very long meeting at work today. The production manager of all of Beijing was at our school yesterday to complete the school's yearly audit. Laura talked to us about things that went well and things that didn't go so well. We all had been taken aback a bit yesterday because the production manager said that we all were not working enough hours and that most of us were only teaching enough hours to add up to a part time teacher. We told Laura we had thought that was really unfair since most of us put in a good ten to twenty hours outside of the 40 hours that we are scheduled to teach.

The only fun part of the meeting was that I had gotten everyone's permission to have a secret santa for the month of December! We are all going to leave little presents around for our secret santa. I'm pretty excited about it.

I taught a tiny class of two this evening of one of my favorite classes. We created our own future time lines and had a pretty good time.

Stephanie and Joyce had made a cake at a bakery for Cindy's birthday, and a few of us went after work to a restaurant across the street from the school. We had dinner and the wait staff were kind enough to let us light candles and everything. Cindy's dinner was on the house and they played a few different instrumental versions of "Happy Birthday" for her. It was fun to just to hang out after a rough meeting.

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello!

Sorry that I haven't been writing for a bit.  I really appreciate everyone who checked in on me!  A few weeks ago, I stopped getting Internet on my computer.  My landlord helped me discover that it wasn't the Internet connection, but my computer!

Uh oh!  Not having a working computer so far away from home is no fun. 

I spent a few long mornings at the Apple Fix-It place.  Luckily, when I looked up the hours to the Apple store in Beijing, I learned that I had to go to another place for repairs.  I spent a long taxi ride getting there with a taxi driver who had no clue where she was going and kept stopping the car to get out and ask people where she was taking this crazy foreigner.  Well... that's how I imagined their conversation going!  She eventually just dropped me off and I went around begging people with help with my Beijinger guide book in hand.  People were super helpful, and a few people called people to translate!  Eventually, I made it to the Fix It place.  

The Fix-It people were very helpful.  Luckily, there was one person who was able to translate for me.  He told me that there was something wrong with my motherboard, but if I bought a portable hard drive, saved everything I needed, I would be able to go back and have them re-install my computer.  They were nice enough to tell me where to go to buy a portable hard drive since they thought that the Mac ones were way too expensive.  It made me trust them more.

I spent one crazed Saturday night finding the mega computer parts store!  My friends at work told me how to get the subway mostly there and then told me to take a taxi the rest of the way. I was able to buy the hard drive pretty easily, and even bargained the price down, which is something I'm not good at or known to do, but the adorable Apple Fix-It dude told me to not pay more than a certain price.  I got back into another taxi after I made my purchase feeling victorious!  I asked the taxi driver to take me to the subway in Mandarin and, of course, he could not understand my awful Mandarin.  A lot of random hand gestures and clarifying went back and forth between us, and he finally said, in English, "Subway, line two!" and I was so excited that I said, "Si, senor!"  He looked at me like I was a crazy foreigner, which, I am!  It was hysterical.  You just can't make up stuff like that!  

Last Monday, I made my way back to the Apple Fix-It place and they reinstalled a new system on my computer, which I appreciated greatly.  My landlord came back over that night and after an hour of us staring at my computer and both of us phoning friends for help and translation, we got the PPOE installed again onto my computer.  I was with Internet again, but lost a lot of my applications.  

Eventually, with some help from friends at work, I now have an "American" computer again, but now set to Beijing time, and a VPN again!  I can now surf the Internet as I please!  It's amazing what they block over here.  I couldn't check most of the news sites I look at... even parts of The Oregonian were blacked out for me.  

So... the big events lately in my life.... I really missed being home for Thanksgiving.  I had to take a test in the morning of Thanksgiving and had to think in a British accent in order to attempt at getting the stress syllable questions right.  I had to memorize the phonetic chart, which was quite an undertaking!  I've been learning a lot of phonics in the last couple of weeks.  However, when I came back in that day after a little break, a package was waiting from home!  My mom sent me a microwaveable box of turkey and stuffing and potatoes.  It was pretty awesome, and had such perfect timing.  I ate my sent turkey dinner, along with some dragonfruit (had to have something Chinese in my Thanksgiving meal) and watched some "Everybody Loves Raymond" Thanksgiving episodes.  Bit of a lonely Thanksgiving, but I think it will help me appreciate being at home more during my holiday!

This past Tuesday, I ran a special workshop on free writing in late elementary and high school classes.  It was at Claire's new school, which is absolutely beautiful.  It took forever to get over there.  Marie, her boyfriend, King, and I took about two hours to get there by subway!  I am so thankful I don't have to take the subway to get to work every day!  Not having a bathroom in the school is odd, though, but there is a public restroom not that far away.  The school is in a huge mall.  We were all excited because there was a nice bakery on the first floor.  Anyways... the workshop went really well.  The only people who came to mine were people from my school and Nick's girlfriend who works at another school.  We shared some our own writing and talked about the writing we do with our students.  It was really special.  Miles taped it for me, and he showed me an edited cut of it today.   I really feel proud of it, and I hope it will be useful when I start my next job search.  

I came home that evening and had no electricity, and the banks had just closed!  I went out to run errands, and came back to read by candlelight!  My sister sent me a book about a girl who is forced to live on a pioneer farm for a summer, and it was quite fitting!

Yesterday morning, I got up early to get to the International bank to transfer some money over and to buy some electricity.  When I got home, I was so psyched to have electricity again!  I went to teach my ladies at the shelter.  My intermediate class was as lovely as ever, and my beginners are learning the parts of the body and are learning so quickly, it's pretty amazing!

That evening, I met my friend Cindy and a few of her friends to celebrate her birthday.  We had dinner at the hippie Western restaurant that I adore in the Lama Temple Hutong.  I had another yummy garden burger.  We ended the night KTVing it, and a few other girls from work were able to meet up with us!  It was a fun night!

I'll end this obnoxiously long blog with a cute story.  One of my Thursday evening classes has decided that my name is "Coco" now.  They scream with laughter over it.  Tonight, during our special welcome circle time were I ask all the children their names and "How are you?" they all said, "My name is Coco!"  with maniacal giggling following it!  They would whisper to each other, "Say Coco!" while I was asking them the question.  It was actually pretty heartwarming...

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!